By Maira Magro
Renato Santana, a reporter for the newspaper Tribuna de Santos, has received threats of harm and is facing pressures from prosecutors in São Paulo state after publishing a series of reports showing the operation of death squads in the area of Santos, São Paulo, the Journalists Union of São Paulo reports.
The reports published April 25-29 say police are involved in several killings, and they accuse prosecutors of failing to investigate the accusations. In a public hearing, a prosecutor accused the newspaper and reporter of fabricating the story and said that if Santana had really interviewed police officers who acted in a death squad, he should take them to testify, Santana says.
The union has demanded that authorities protect the journalist.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
